- Duration: 25 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01JWEPB13DF8RMQCS7GBTNGP5T (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01JWEPB13DF8RMQCS7GBTNGP5T)
Transcript
[Laura Close]: Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about what you do. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Yeah. [Michael Houck]: So, um, quick background on me. So I’ve been a founder for a while. I was at first early teams at Uber and Airbnb back in my big tech days. Uh, and then after that, uh, founded a couple of companies, uh, and a venture fund. Uh, the most recent one is megaphone, which is our content agency and also amplification platform where we get big creators to engage with your content. Um, so we We handle both, we handle content creation and we handle sort of distribution and awareness. And yeah, so we work with founders, we work with leaders, we work with execs, we work with VCs, and we create social media content for them for LinkedIn or X, or in some cases, even threads, which people are flocking to a little bit right now. It’s news to me, but, and then also email newsletters. So I built my own newsletter up to about 80,000 subscribers. 8080 on beehive. And so we also do that for a bunch of startups and founders as well. So we handle the full process where you know, basically it’s low, low lift for you. We’re not trying to put a ton of meetings on your calendar. So we’ll do one kickoff call sort of at the beginning. And then after that, you know, everything will happen through slack unless you want to do content interviews with us, that’s totally fine too, but our default is making it as async and easy to fit into your schedule as possible. Okay. [Laura Close]: I guess talk to me a little bit about sort of the outcomes people are seeing from your work. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, so first let me direct the conversation whichever direction you want to go, which is are you more interested in sort of an email newsletter, sort of building trust, getting people further down the funnel, or is it more generating awareness and impressions and follow growth on LinkedIn or X? [Laura Close]: I mean, the follower growth is secondary, right? Like we’re 100% looking for lead gen and having me out way out front of the company brand has been working. I am reaching, I mean, I may, I may crack and crack through to the other side, but like current state, my assessment is I’m sort of reaching the limit of what I’ve been able to figure out how to do. With my own tool set, my own awesome brain. So I’m wondering about scaling. I have an audience of 11,000 right now. When I joined LinkedIn, I had 800 followers. So the question is really like, how do we drive up engagement with the audience that I have? And I’m much more interested in content that converts than I am about views. Because the rest comes naturally. Got it. [Michael Houck]: I mean, yeah, that makes sense. That’s not what everyone’s priority is. Some people are like, I just want to get my face out there as much as possible. But no, lead and conversion focused content makes sense. So, okay. So yeah, so my co-founder and I on the agency, we’ve both built 100,000 person audiences on social ourselves. And I think we’re, if not the only, then like one of the two only agencies that can actually say that people operate the business on a day-to-day basis have actually built large audiences themselves. Most people, it’s like, oh, you know, my investor is a big creator and I’m not, it’s not, that’s not us. So yeah, so we’ll be in the weeds with you. You know, we’ve seen clients, we’ve been doing this now for about a year. We’ve seen clients go from 1000, so similar starting to where you did to 16 or 17K. In four to five months we’ve seen folks who on the newsletter side who you know have basically taken an email list that they had and or social audience that they have and turn those into you know multiple multiple six figures of ARR for their businesses. Well so you have an email list right and then you use social to grow that email list or you use you know meta ads or cold email to grow it there’s a different ways you can grow it, but you funnel them into an email newsletter, and then you basically have unlimited shots on goal to get in front of them. And if you add valuable content to them about the topics that you’re talking about, you have a footer in the newsletter that basically pitches your product. And if they’re interested in the content, chances are they’ll be interested in the product. So it sort of naturally flows that way. We’ve done that for my own business. I took 10K and started a newsletter, and now the business does $2 million a year. It's a funnel that we know how to set up. But on social specifically, we've seen folks who've done everything. We've started folks from 20K, and now they're at 60K. We've started folks from, as I said, like 1K, and now they're at 16 or 17K. So that is where we're starting. Content that I think leans into personal expertise is what's resonating right now. You know, we see more people posting like AI generated slop content. [Laura Close]: Yeah, no, that's a good question. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Laura Close]: So I love that you said that. Because like a lot of what you're saying, the structure is solid, right? But it really hinges on whether the content converts. Yes, correct. I was recently tapped by IBM and flown now to South by Southwest to feature their CHRO. They wanted access to my micro audience. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: It was new. [Laura Close]: The whole thing was like... [Michael Houck]: You're an influencer now. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I am. [Michael Houck]: It's just like, don't tell my 13 year old. [Laura Close]: So I started reading some articles, right? I was like, what's going on? And I want to kind of circle back to this thing you said about writing about your So I am a founder of a people analytics platform. It's AI for people analytics. Yep. I am neither an engineer nor a CTO nor a people analytics expert, nor originally from the HR space really in any way that's defensible. So my audience is, It's almost entirely like CHROs. I mean, it's crazy, right? And one of the things I uncovered when I was reading about why on earth is IBM doing this with me beyond the fact that my audience is there, what they want it to sell to, is that the current, I mean, this is very recent article, eight weeks old, current thing is like influencers or whatever that have like a dual expertise, right? That's executive coaching, partnering with executives across all the different functions of the business to talk turkey about their strategy. And I wonder if that could be a winning strategy for content that converts, right? So when I talk to people about our software, I don't talk about it as a people analyst. I don't talk about it as an engineer. And I also don't talk about it as an HR leader. I just talk about it as like solid fucking strategy. [Michael Houck]: When you think about it, if these people who are following you are these CHROs, chances are they already know a lot of that stuff anyway, or over the course of their careers, they've built up trusted sources to get that from So if we tried to create content for you that was more traditional people analytics type content, even though it's more aligned to what they do on a day-to-day basis, it's probably less interesting to them, right? So yeah, we'd want to position you sort of differently. [Laura Close]: It's a more executive stance, actually, as I'm thinking this through out loud. And that's probably why I'm going like gangbusters with all these CHROs, because I just can't sweat the small stuff, because I actually don't know the small stuff. The only thing I can talk to you about is the most executive part of the conversation. That's the only place I can show up. [Michael Houck]: That's the stuff that they're people are hungry for, because they want to know, all right, I'm CHRO now, like, you know, how do I be the best CHRO? How do I secure my job? How do I secure my team? How do I grow my influence within the company? And maybe some of them have ambitions to go up even higher in the C-suite, right? [Laura Close]: So, yeah. And so what they want from me is to hear that, you know, adopting this AI tool as a career maker, or things related to that concept. And that also, they want to think like a startup founder, they want to, they want to feel like the sweat coming off of me. They wanna be like nearby to the space without ever being in it, right? [Michael Houck]: Yeah, that totally makes sense. Yeah, they wanna know what's the next thing for me. Is it, do I go really deep with this and I use these tools and become super influential within the company and as you said, have it be a career maker or are they looking for how do I lead a company? What's my next step? Something like that. [Laura Close]: So it makes total sense. Lead. I don't think they want to become founders. I think they just want to borrow a little bit, toughen up so that they can go do their thing more. They say like, I think and act like an entrepreneur, but actually I've been an entrepreneur for 72 years, right? [Michael Houck]: Actually I have a stable salary and I'm not looking to disrupt that. [Laura Close]: Never have, you know. So tell me, we're almost at time, tell me a little bit about pricing and what you can offer based of what I'm describing. Yes. [Michael Houck]: So, okay. [Michael Houck]: So, it depends on what you'd want to include. So, our base, our standard package is 4k a month, $39.95 a month. And what you get for that is basically everything that we do. So, that’s three long form posts per week that we’ll deliver to you. And obviously, we’ll want your sort of unique POV on that. So, we’d set up a Slack channel, as I said, and get some voice notes back for our research from you. And we get a couple weeks ahead. So, we’re not always scrambling from week to week or anything like that. We’d handle scheduling. We’d actually go into your account and engage with the people who are replying to your content so that it drives impressions and conversations and incentivizes people to respond to you. We’d also identify a list of thought leaders, and maybe you already know who these people are, but a list of thought leaders in your niche who we want to be engaging with from your account. So we’ll write thoughtful, insightful, maybe sometimes funny comments in response to their viral posts so that people see that you stand out in the reply. And then they come visit your profile, basically getting the audience you want from the people who already have it. And then we also have our Creator Network, like I said, and you get credits to basically incentivize and pay the creators to engage with your content as well. And then we do reporting through Slack and initial profile optimization audit that I would do myself. If you wanted to mix and match things, say, hey, maybe I don’t want the Creator Network credits Or maybe I only want two posts per week instead of three. We could lower the price down to 3K, or at a minimum that we would do is 2K. And I don’t think there’s anything else, but What about the newsletter? Newsletter could be either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. And similar pricing scale, monthly is 1K, bi-weekly is 2K, and weekly is $35. Hundreds or slightly, slightly less, we handle all scheduling, we'll set up a beehive account for you, we even have a designer who can do the brand, unless you have someone on your team who you'd prefer to do that. And same process, we'd write the issues, we'd send them to you for review, you let us know if you want to add more of your unique POV in there as well, or any edits that you have. And then we'd schedule we'd set up email automations as well. So like if somebody clicks on this link, then they get this offer about the or a welcome sequence and things like that. Why should I not just write my own monthly newsletter? [Laura Close]: I mean, the way you make it sounds like I could do it. Like, what do you, like, like, give me a little bit. Cause like, you're like, okay, you have a newsletter. I did it, but I'm missing sort of like what you'll do for me besides like write it. [Michael Houck]: Well, we can also grow the newsletter as well. So that's something that we could add on. So as I said, we can do sort of meta ads where we're trying to get CPAs under $2 per subscriber for you. We also do cold email-based growth. So a lot of people think, oh, meta ads are the only way to grow an email list. It’s not really true these days. Basically, you can find people based on their social media engagement and who they follow and things like that, grab their emails, and then send them a free lead magnet, something simple, if they engage with that. Add them to the newsletter. It’s pretty standard strategy for some of the folks who are growing the fastest in the newsletter space right now. And you can do that similar engagement and open rates that you would get from paid ads, but for cheaper per subscriber. [Laura Close]: Are you really reading these newsletters though? I mean, are you talking about you’re, you’re ultimately disseminating through LinkedIn? UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: No, no, no, no. This is, this is a, are you familiar with Beehive? [Michael Houck]: Um, I’ve heard of it. Yeah. [Michael Houck]: So, uh, they’re, they’re a startup that’s super hot right now. Uh, basically they’re a platform designed to help startups and other people send newsletters. Um, it’s somewhere between like Substack and Klaviyo is how I think about it. Um, and so no, this wouldn’t be through LinkedIn. This would be outside the platform. [Laura Close]: So when you, I guess the thing that’s missing is like, I don’t, I don’t get how, like, how are, I feel like you’re just going to take my content and pump it out, but like I want expert guidance on, and I just don’t, I don’t need like more followers, right? That doesn’t do anything for me unless they’re interacting with the material and converting right in the newsletter. So I need expert guidance on, cause I can do this by myself and I’m a, I’m a really good writer. I just have trouble with the consistency and the pumping it out and then, and I don’t have experience scaling for conversion in that channel at all, right? So do you influence and shape the content and components of that strategy such that, right, I don’t need vanity metrics, but such that I’m taking shots on the goal and seeing, you know, outcomes and top of funnel or clicks on the website or, you know, is there an influence coming from you? Yeah, of course. Yeah. [Michael Houck]: We’re not just going to take your money, deliver some content and call it a day. Like we’re in the weeds with you. We are obviously the ones who are shaping the actual content. What we need from you is your unique POV, right? So we need you to respond to the questions that we have with, with voice notes of, Hey, here’s a, here’s my, my point of view on this. If we get that from you, we can handle the rest. We know what kind of content will perform, we know what kind of content will drive conversions. Obviously, you know, with any new account that we’re working with, we want to test a bunch of things out in the first couple weeks and months. [Laura Close]: But yes, that’s, that’s totally part of the package. Okay, great. Okay, so now we’re talking turkey. So I’m giving you like some voice notes, and you’re converting the material into content that you analytically have measured drives conversions. And tens. Okay. Got it. [Michael Houck]: Using the best practices that we’ve used across other clients and our own accounts as well. [Laura Close]: Okay. So are you open to like, I guess like KPI reporting is maybe the wrong word, but like analytic sharing, like being like, okay, the last newsletter, you know, had a 30% increase in click throughs here. Right. Laura, is this linked to your website or are you just going to shit the bed, like kind of like, you know, this conversation pretty much exclusively through a data lens. Yeah, we’ll share all data with you. [Michael Houck]: You’ll have access to the beehive account. So you can see it yourself. And you can flag things if anything looks off to you. [Laura Close]: But we’ll also do proactive reporting to you on a weekly basis, both for social and for the newsletter. Very interesting. Okay. Um, uh, do you have materials? [Michael Houck]: I have a notion document. That kind of lays everything out, I can send that over. And then, yeah, I guess just let me know what you’re what you’re thinking. And we can we can go from there. [Laura Close]: Yeah, I have to look it over and really like sit with it for a minute and think about like, sir, everything we’re doing right now, because of the exact stage there is a surgical strike. And so I need to kind of like hold this up against the leg and think about sort of, is it a full thing? Or is it a one thing? [Michael Houck]: Okay, so I guess I’ll send that over. As you’re thinking through that maybe we touch base again next week, hop on for a few minutes and kind of talk through any questions that come up. But I think we love to work with folks who are already seeing some level of success with their content, because it shows that there’s resonance there. And we can expand on that. So we’d love to work with you. So yeah, I guess take a look. [Laura Close]: And then we can chat more next week. Yeah, thank you for that. I it’s hard to imagine, you know, five years ago, who I am now. Like, I go viral twice a month. I just So sometimes yelling works. [Laura Close]: Okay, great. [Laura Close]: Thanks for sending over the Notion doc. I’m interested to see it. Cool, I’ll get it to you after I wrap up calls this afternoon. UNKNOWN_SPEAKER: Go to chat, Laura, talk soon.